The Relief Society is an organization for women in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. Women become members once they turn 18 and attend weekly meetings, participate in community service, and take part in an annual conference for members.
I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was 14 and now I’m 60.
The Relief Society is an opportunity to get together with the other sisters and talk about things that engross us spiritually. We talk about things that we have in common and things that we don’t have in common and find mutual ground on it.
The church has changed over the years. Back in the 1960s or 1970s, the focus was a lot different. A lot of women stayed home with their children, so the focus was more on homemaking and that sort of thing.
As I grew into Relief Society, I realized there were a lot of spiritual aspects of it. We have three meetings in the church on Sunday. We start with sacrament meeting, then Sunday school, and after that, the women go to Relief Society and the men go to Priesthood.
In Relief Society, we’ll have an opening hymn, an opening prayer and then we’ll have a lesson. The lesson is generally on spiritual topics and they’re are all done by other members of the church. Women are teaching women.